The sophomore edition of netball’s own Island Games-style tournament will be taking place from Friday 30 October to Sunday 1 November, following on three years after the maiden event in the Isle of Man.
The freshly announced Guernsey squad consists of 13 players that have been representing Panthers at regional level but, testament to how domestic netball has changed in recent times, Abbie Greening and Viviane Kamworth are the only ones that are returning from three years ago.
Charlotte Hill will be taking up captaincy duties and believes the squad will be able to improve upon Guernsey’s win-less previous outing.
‘It’s nice that we are doing it again, and when we did it last time we were just coming out of Covid and it was a fairly new set-up for Guernsey netball,’ she said.
‘We’d not had a head coach for a very long time before that, or not really, so it’s nice we’ve got a bit more experience and have a solid squad that has really trained towards it.’
Guernsey’s closest match in the previous edition came against Shetland, who won by just five goals.
Shetland are returning and, in bullish fashion, Hill said: ‘That’s one we are looking at going out to win.’
The overall opposition will consist of the hosts Ynys Mon, Orkney, Shetland and – quite intriguingly – France.
The strength of the French team is still unknown, but Hill balanced the alarm of playing an apparent national side with the fact that they are not hugely established in netball. Their full national team is ranked 38th globally and so two places behind the Isle of Man.
‘It will be interesting to see what the standard of France is.
’It’s nice to have something different.’
Overall, with Panthers having won three from four in CD Phoenix Regional League action this season, Hill hopes that the team can lay down a solid marker for some tough tests ahead.
‘I really do hope we can put in a good performance out there.
‘Being able to go out and perform, looking ahead to the inter-insulars and seeing what we can do and benchmark ourselves … this is a really good weekend to be able to do that.’
GUERNSEY SQUAD
Charlotte Hill (C), Ella Staples (VC), Georgie Parfit, Jaymee-Leigh Weysom, Savannah Goddard, Bryony de Garis, Sophie Pontin, Kerys Chamberlain, Viviane Kamworth, Anna Fazakerley, Amy Le Tocq, Eva Bourgaize, Abbie Greening.
